ACTA transparency: can shame work where lawsuits fail?

Digital rights group continue their attempt to shame the Obama administration …

President Obama was supposed to champion the geek ethos by sweeping into DC and backing network neutrality, mashups, and transparency—but the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Knowledge both say they're not impressed by the "transparency" seen so far on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

Obama did direct federal agencies to change the way that they respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, and to adopt a presumption of openness. But, according to EFF Senior Counsel David Sobel, "The president promised an open and transparent administration. But in this case and others we are litigating at EFF, we've found that the new guidelines liberalizing implementation of the Freedom of Information Act haven't changed a thing."

The case that Sobel refers to is EFF's attempt to get more information on the in-process ACTA negotiations. The group filed a lawsuit last year after the government turned over little information. Obama's new pick for the US Trade Representative has already announced his willingness to be more open on ACTA, but the recent release of ACTA information contained little new material.

EFF and Public Knowledge are calling on the government to disclose nearly a thousand pages of additional material. The lawsuit to get that material remains in place, but both groups seem to think that a public shaming might work faster (it would certainly be cheaper).

Both groups are especially concerned about the treaty's Internet section. In the publicly released information, that section remains the least complete, saying only that discussions are underway and no draft text is even available yet. But the treaty could well use the section to deal with "graduated response" laws and ISP filtering, as various industry groups have suggested.

"What we've seen tends to confirm that the substance of ACTA remains a grave concern," said Public Knowledge Staff Attorney Sherwin Siy. "The agreement increasingly looks like an attempt by Hollywood and the content industries to perform an end-run around national legislatures and public international forums to advance an aggressive, radical change in the way that copyright and trademark laws are enforced."

In addition to documents, the groups would also like a seat at the table. Industry lobbyists in both Canada and the US have reportedly been involved in discussions with ACTA negotiators, though it doesn't appear that civil society groups are given the same access.

Who exactly are they trying to shame? Lobbyists? The MPAA or RIAA? Neither of these groups are susceptible to it. Politicians? Maybe if you catch one in bed with a member of their staff, who is of the same sex.

You would need widespread video coverage of people from all 4 groups clubbing puppies as part of a orgy of sex and violence for the shame to come close to amount of money involved for it to have any effect.

In addition to documents, the groups would also like a seat at the table. Industry lobbyists in both Canada and the US have reportedly been involved in discussions with ACTA negotiators, though it doesn't appear that civil society groups are given the same access.

This seems to happen all the time. Nothing makes me want to go marching east with a pitchfork quite as much. Democracy, you say? Where?

You would need widespread video coverage of people from all 4 groups clubbing puppies as part of a orgy of sex and violence for the shame to come close to amount of money involved for it to have any effect.

First, that's hilarious. Second, where is this concept of shame? Who are they going to shame into overriding FOIA requests? I just don't see it...

I'm surprised no one's managed to start some vicious rumors about ACTA and have it spread far and wide.

Imagine telling everyone in the world stuff like "ACTA will ban the iPod!" or "ACTA makes the record button illegal" or other stuff. Or even "Windows 7 will not allow copying due to ACTA". This can even be extended to "Download music, go to jail in ACTA".

They all have a grain of truth to them from what was heard, and sensationalism does get into the media (especially since there's silence on the actual contents of ACTA, it only fuels the misinformation - "why aren't they telling us what it has? It's because it's true!").

Why hasn't it happened yet? Get the public worked up over it... there was a story in the paper here a few months ago (front page, even) saying "Is your iPod illegal?" regarding the treaty.

Wouldn´t "Cloud Computing" make ACTA laws obsolite? Getting a free account at icloud and get 3gb hard drive with your own viritual computer. 3gb that u can share with 10 of your friends and u will have 30gb of share. As u stream evrything from your cloud computer nothing gets copied. Just shared, or lent out to your friend".

Ur cloud computer are access able from anyware in the world so internet filtering wont help, u never have to travel over the boarder with ur files just store what ever u want on your cloud computer and access it from anywhere. Sorry if it looks like a ad but all is free for nowe atleast.

Thought it could be an intresting thing to share with u guys.Putted in a google translated blog post i did about it.